10 years to go .... maybe, with a fair wind

Lauraebrad

12th April already - and April is certainly Apriling today switching between blue skies and showers with alarming frequency.  The small one is with his dad today and I have some hardcore pottering to do - catching up with myself after the delightful, but ultimately tiring, break over the Easter holidays.  

We had a delightful two night trip to a lovely youth hostel in the Yorkshire Dales this week.  It’s harder as the small one gets older as I’m sure he’d rather spend time with friends than me - but I was the only option available!  Under duress he did some walking with me, and we ate a lot of delicious food.  The hostel had catering which was really good, and we also cooked for ourselves some of the time.  I’m always on the look out for good ideas for foods to prepare away from home.  The winner this time (not ours sadly!) was a fancy looking foil dish of moussaka with garlic bread.  The room was booked during the YHA sale earlier this year, and despite all the food consumed, and the price of fuel to drive to the other end of Yorkshire it was still a good value break. 

Thinking about hostel cooking becomes all the more relevant as I’m currently in the process of booking the various legs of our summer holiday which is going to involve swinging through Switzerland and therefore a lot of very frugal supermarket eating by all accounts! 

In mortgage news, my building society app has recently been updated so that I can now see mortgage transactions - previously only the balance was shown. Now that I’m in much lower figures, and will be sending more OPs directly to the mortgage rather than saving them up to deliver in a lump sum, it’ll be motivating I think to see that number reducing quickly(ish) down.  Might set myself some mini challenges to add to my current regular OPs …

An unexpected expense (my fault for not thinking ahead) this month was new walking boots for the teenager.  Managed to get a good deal at G0 0utd00rs but need to offset that further.  Have just today managed to sell his old walking shoes on V1nted for £20 which is a good start, so think I’ll set a challenge to match that with other sales and / or pr0l1f1c before the credit card is due.

Thinking that the remainder of April will be relatively quiet post-holidays.  No birthdays to buy for, or occasions for eating out that I can think of.  So a couple of weeks frugality before next pay day - which will do me the worlds of good!

Hope everyone out there is having an excellent April.

South_coast

Your trips sound epic - I would happily come and be your child if your DS ever wants to swap 😀!

P.S. I love the idea of hardcore pottering

Lauraebrad

Ah thanks @South_coast ! I do love him dearly, but it is so freeing whenever I go on trips with friends to not feel like I'm having to coax them to pack their stuff / come for a walk / put their phone down ….

savingholmes

Laura - it's said we've spent 90% of the time we will with our kids by the age of 18… Scary thought. But given my DS is on the other side of the world it certainly feels true…

Well done on the holiday and memory making. Switzerland sounds like it will be awesome too.

Lauraebrad

May is galloping along so time for an update. I’m always discombobulated by Bank Holiday weeks - I’m sure I’m in the minority not being a massive fan of them.  I find either that everyone else is doing something interesting to maximise the long weekend and you feel underwhelmed if you don’t have plans - or otherwise you decide to do something fun and everyone else is also there jamming the place up!!

Anyway.  Last month was a bit of a budget buster so trying a bit harder to rein things in this month.  I’ve no idea how, but managed to massively overspend on the groceries / household budget.  Some of that was date confusion (i.e. purchases that should have been this month) and some was delivery of a large box of loo rolls that I failed to pause in time.  However, I think a fair amount was just sloppy shopping habits.  That …. and a new found taste for kimchi and sauerkraut.  Improving my gut microbiome is turning out to be expensive - so maybe I need to add trying to make my own onto my list of things to do.  The locally made beetroot, fennel and orange kraut is currently winning the sandwich filling stakes. 

In sort-of money saving news, a friend has gifted us their old coffee machine this week, as they have upgraded.  I have very happily used a stove-top moka pot for years, but the small one has been on at me to get a coffee machine with a milk frothing want for ages - so this is actually perfect.  It’s nice and small which is good, and it also turns out that the teenager is quite a good barista (too much time watching Yootoob videos I suspect) - so it’ll be a fun addition to the kitchen for £0. 

I could really do with getting into the garden this weekend.  I’m taking wildness to new levels - no mow May is more like no mow 2025 and 2026.  I have seed potatoes waiting to plant out, and a quick look in my mum’s greenhouse last weekend was enough to tell me that there will be all manner of seedlings wending my way soon.  So this weekend I shall tackle all the pots of dried out compost from last year’s plants I think.  Really wishing that I’d done it in the autumn of course.  But hey ho. 

The other day I was mulling over work, which is only going to get trickier in the short term, and thinking about my longer term prospects.  Someone in my team is leaving, who started on the same day as me.  He’s just leaving.  Not retiring or moving elsewhere.  And it got me to thinking that that degree of freedom and flexibility is a mighty thing indeed.  I do have a (short) list of other places that I could potentially work that would use my skills well.  Although after the last few years its so tempting to take a slide right back down the ladder away from the stress of responsibility.  On balance though I think that the next four years is the time to put my preparation in for whatever freedom I might arrive at, or wherever I might leap to.  A few reasons for this: (1) 4 years is long enough to follow through on my current work without entering into the next ‘cycle’ (2) 4 years is how long the small one will have left at school / 6th form (3) Approx 4 years is realistic to pay off the mortgage (4) 4 years is a good time to have my career average pension in a good place.  I’m not saying anything drastic will happen in 4 years time, but having considered all these aspects it does seem like a good time frame to pull a lot of elements together.

Anyway, that’s the long term …. Right now living in the minute I have approx 30 mins in the garden before the teenager crashes in from school so let’s see if I can get those spuds in.

 

savingholmes

Four years is a good stretch of time to get life sorted. Do you know what your DS is likely to want to do at 18? How will that factor in financially to your plans?

Lauraebrad

Thanks @savingholmes … who knows what the small one will end up doing.  He’d like to be a pilot, but I think he’s assuming he’ll go to university first.  I know it’s expensive, but going to uni was so formative for me (and his dad) that I would definitely support that choice, or indeed any other that he makes!

Back to the last couple of month’s MFW moves.  In excellent news I received my N@ationwide fair share so that’s another easy £100 off the mortgage.  For this reason alone definitely the best bank account I’ve ever had (notwithstanding switch bonuses).  I think I have another couple of bonuses coming in the next few weeks in the form of cash back that’s paid annually from 2 credit cards - so that will be a happy little windfall. I expect they will immediately get used up on something sensible!   

The teenager was off hiking in the hills a couple of  weekends ago so I spent some time peacefully in the garden - finally planting out the tomato, squash and chard plants my mum’s given me.  The heatwave then followed so now the tomato department is totally out of control with plants growing at crazy angles, and tangled up as I was busy/hot and didn’t get tall enough stakes in in time.  Hey ho - at least quite a lot of tomato fruits are setting which is pleasing.  Probably not especially moneysaving once the price of compost and watering is taken into account but homegrown tomatoes are such a treat.

Last weekend were in the Yorkshire Dales with the small, a couple of his friends and their respective mums so that they lads could do a sponsored attempt at the Yorkshire 3 Peaks.  They completed it in a very respectable time, and I was very happy being the support vehicle.  In being MSE’s we’d booked a single dorm for all of us in a budget hostel …. great for money saving - less so for sleeping well it turns out!  Anyway, the end result was a happy boy and lots of sponsorship raised.

Last month was a spendy one again, so back on the budgeting bandwagon for July.  Thankfully no birthdays or other big occasions before the end of this billing cycle.  Ironically once we get in to the summer holidays it’s actually slightly better as our local music festival and summer holidays away are both funded out of my sinking funds so that’s several weeks where the ‘everyday’ budget isn’t taking quite such a hit.

Interestingly there was a bit of a conversation about overpaying mortgages in the office the other day - and how much you can save in interest and time.  It seems there are several other overpayers around me - although I couldn’t hear the conversation very well from where I was sat!!

Anyway, hope you’re all having a good July and remaining relatively cool in the face of the weather.

Lauraebrad

Goodness, September already.  The summer was mainly a lot of fun but also spendy as expected.  The holiday fund certainly got a hammering in the Lake District and Switzerland although definitely worth it. I’ve not done a final tally yet of all that I spent, but I think the holiday fund balance will be nearly down to zero after paying it all off.  Which I guess is the point.

Some more sinking funds are going to take a hit this autumn as well probably.  Whilst we were away staying in various places I really enjoyed using non-broken hobs in holiday houses.  My gas hob here was in the house when I moved in 19 years ago, and is now at the point where only 2 rings work and even they don’t light properly.  So the time has probably come to replace it - with a nice flat, easily cleaned, functioning hob of some sort.  I do have some money saved for ‘appliances’ but need to find out how much it’ll actually cost.  There’s always a bit of a fear of using up that money that’s saved though just in case something else needs replacing - so fingers crossed all my other appliances remain functional for as long as possible!!

The mortgage OPs are going OK - have had a few cashbacks come through recently which has helped, and I think I also have some regular savers maturing soon so the interest from those should also boost the OPs.

We’ve finally had confirmation of this year’s payrise, so should get back pay at the end of September for the period since April.  Hoping that I’ve calculated it right at around £300.   At the moment I’m considering splitting it between the mortgage, future holidays and a specific saving fund for the teenager, but might wait and see how much a new hob will cost to fit!

The final biggish spend will be in my garden.  I had an ancient pergola that’s been collapsing for years.  It was the walkway into my garden and it seemed to prop up a big pear tree, and in turn be propped up by an enormous honeysuckle.  Well just before we went on holiday it finally completely collapsed taking everything with it.  I’ve managed to clear and tip-run a lot of the bushes, but there’s now a massive gap.  I’d already bought a replacement pergola (last year) but need help to get it into secure concrete footings, so looks like I’ll need to pay a handyman to get that done.

So plenty of jobs here as we head into autumn…. 

Happy September all 

South_coast

A new hob sounds like a good investment!

Glad you had a good summer 🩷

debtfreewannabe321

I think a new hob is the perfect thing to spend on, it's something you'll use all the time 😀 I love my new induction hob although if it gets water splashing on it it switches itself off if I haven't locked it 🤣 my old one was gas and I also had two dodgy ones on mine, in the end I just stopped using them altogether.

Glad your summer holidays have been good 😊.